Five Years Later
by Natalie Ross
Summary: Will and Elizabethe both reflect on their love and where they are 5 years after the end of At World's End *bonus scene not withstanding*. Rated teen to be on the safe side.


Five Years and Counting

Disclaimer: I don't own either of the songs Unchained Melody sung by the Righteous Brothers and Who Knew by Pink nor do I own POTC.

This thought has been rolling around for awhile and finally it just demanded to come out. I don't know how wonderful it is considering it is now way past bedtime but my muse wouldn't let me sleep until I wrote it. Be kind this is my first POTC fic and I don't know how well I did. Constructive criticism is always wanted. Natalie

Will

Oh my love, my darling, I've hungered for your touch a long, lonely time.

And time goes by so slowly and time can do so much. Are you still mine?

I need your love. I need your love. God speed your love to me.

Will was lost. Had been for five years and would be for another five. Without the one he loved what else could he be. How he missed Elizabeth. The way her eyes lit up when she was mad or the way her the corners of her lips twitched when she didn't want to laugh but did anyway. Was she still his? Ten years was a long time to go without someone to depend on. He wouldn't begrudge her if she had moved on but how he needed her love, her touch. Closing his eyes he could almost trick himself into believing that she was here with him. Next to him. Loving him.

Lonely rivers flow to the sea, to the sea. To the open arms of the sea

Lonely rivers sigh wait for wait for me I'll coming home wait for me.

The sea was his love now but not forever. He'd be back, please let her be waiting for him. He could imagine kissing her again for the first time in 10 years, the feel of her body against his. He'd be coming home but time goes by so slowly and time can do so much. The question still lingered in his head. 'Are you still mine, Elizabeth? Wait for me, I'll be coming home. Wait for me'

Oh my love, my darling, I've hungered, hungered for your touch a long, lonely time

And time goes by so slowly and time can do so much. Are you still mine?

I need your love. I need your love. God speed your love to me.

He laid is head down in his cabin and started to cry with all the love and loneliness he had inside of him. Hoping for a respite from the constant pain that being separated from her caused him. He could feel the echo of the heartbeat that he had not felt in his own chest for 5 years and felt some comfort that that small piece of him was with his beloved. As he had said, it had always belonged to her.

Elizabeth

You took my hand, you showed me how, you promised me you'd be around.

I took your words and I believed in everything you said to me.

Elizabeth watched as Jack and her son played out in the front yard of her house. How she longed that it could have been Will doing the father son bonding that she was witnessing. He had promised her that he would always be there and he had failed to keep that promise. She understood of course. This was far better than the alternative. She had missed him every day of the five years and she would continue to miss him until the day she saw him again. She watched her son closely. She hadn't known Will when he was four but she would hazard to guess that her son was the spitting of image of his father. At least she had that to cling to.

If someone said three years from now you'd be long gone. I'd stand up and punch them out cuz they're all wrong.

I know better cuz you said forever and ever.

Who knew?

She closed her eyes remember the time after their adventure with Jack but before that wretched Cuttler Beckett had entered their lives. They were so close and so happy. Nobody could have come between them. Elizabeth had known with all of her being that she was going to be with this man for the rest of her life. And now she had only had one day, one wonderful short day with him to tide her over for the next ten years and such a long lonely ten years it was. Who knew that 7 years from the time that she was so happy and naively thinking that she would be with Will through everything that she would be standing here watching her son play with his only father figure. What an odd course her life had taken.

Remember when we were such fools and so convinced and just too cool.

I wish I could touch you again

I wish I could still call you friend

I'd give anything

She missed everything about him. His smile, his laugh, his dark eyes that conveyed all of his love and longing so readily. She missed their talks the most. They had been best friends since the day James and his men had pulled him from the sea. She'd give anything to change the course that her life had taken. God to just go back to the day of the battle between the Black Pearl and the Flying Dutchman. She'd lock Will in a cabin with her and they would hide. No…it had happened the way it was meant to. She and Will wouldn't have hidden. That wasn't who they were. That wasn't the man that she had fallen in love with. She was just going to have to live with the fact that she and Will had been separated. No matter how hard that thought was. How it made her heart break into pieces.

When someone said count your blessings now before they're long gone

I guess I just didn't know how, I was all wrong

They knew better but still you said forever and ever

Who knew

She thought back to a conversation she and Jack had had on the Black Pearl one day a few weeks before she had offered him to the Kraken. He had told her to thank the heavens for what she had because one day all she would have would be memories. How right he was. At the time she had gotten mad at him and told him that he shouldn't talk like that, that he couldn't speak for her. But now she knew how wise, if a little, all right how very odd, Jack was. God how she should have listened to him. There were so many lost moments with Will. Moments in which she could have told him how she felt over and over again, so that there would have been no question in his mind, instead of cold silence and angry glances. Oh well, she'd have the rest of her life for what if's. Jack looked up as if sensing the subject of her thoughts and gave her a wan smile and she gave one back. This was her life now. At least for another 5 years until she would have him back and her family would finally be complete.

I'll keep you locked in my head until we meet again

I won't forget you my friend

What happened

She told Will, her son, all about his father every night before he went to bed. Told him of how brave his father was. How smart and kind and generous he was. Her son ate it up with rapt attention, loving the tales of his pirate father. Will was very much around them in memory if not in flesh. 'I love you.' She thought wistfully. Hoping that wherever her love was he knew that she was thinking of him.

If someone said three years from now you'd be long gone. I'd stand up and punch them out cuz their all wrong.

And that last kiss, I'll cherish until we meet again

And time makes it harder I wish I could remember

But I keep your memory

You visit me in my sleep

My darlin, who knew

That day on the beach was the best day and the worst day of her life. Will had opened her eyes to so many things that day, she had memories that while not enough would see her through and she received her greatest gift. Her little boy that was so like his father in looks and personality. Her part of Will. The last kiss they had before he walked away had been so bittersweet. It broke her heart and knew that his had broken to in the chest that she was now keeper of knowing that it would be the last for ten years. He had such longing in his eyes even then, longing she knew had been reflected in hers. Longing to be with each other for just five more minutes.

Her memories would be all that would serve as comfort to her until she felt her husbands arms around her again. That sensation was already a faded memory but it was hers and she clung to it with all of the desperation that a frightened child clings to a favored toy in the middle of a thunderstorm. She slept with his chest that he had entrusted her with underneath her bed. Sometimes she would bring it out, lay her head over it so that she could hear the rhythmic beating and cry over what had become of them. She still had dreams of him. In the most frequent, he would smile and tell her he loved her in that gentle way of his but when she would try to reach for him, she would wake up, alone in her bed with nothing but a chest holding the beating heart of the man she loved and their son to remind her of her purpose and why she tried to keep her head above the water.

'I'm waiting for you, William Turner. So is our son. Come back to us.'

So there you have it. Please review. Thank you bunches.

Nat


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